Sucker Punch (12 page)

Joe dove for the one across from him, hoping it wouldn't expect that. He was aware of a blur of motion as Vi leapt, too. The nanite must have found a way to signal her—

Offspring. He didn't have time to think about it. Didn't have time to wonder. He was back in the vortex, though it was not as deep as the last one. He was still present in the outerworld this time, staring into the maddened eyes of his Smith.

“You can't win. You are one. We are more.”

“You should have waited,” Vi gritted out. “We are more, too.”

His Smith's eyes widened. Realization stealing its focus for a microsecond.

Take them into the time stream,
Lurch ordered.

“
D
idn't
we just leave this party?” Vi panted, though it wasn't the same party. There were differences. For one thing, she was still present, looking at Smith and his color swirling eyes. Lightning was back. So was the pain. The burning, but no spheres, no images, thank goodness. There was ground beneath her feet.

The color deepened in the eyes when it realized Vi hadn't come to the party without a nanite. She didn't know if Nod was strong enough to help. Just hoped that the offspring—and Lurch's sudden call to action—meant these were young enough to take down without quite so much drama.

Young makes them both easier and harder. Do not look away from its eyes.

Wasn't sure she could.

Hang on.

For what—?

The sudden yank to her midsection felt like it bent her back until her head brushed her heels. This wasn't the place of horrors and pain. More like a freaky ocean of lights and colors. Like being dragged through a storm with a writhing, fighting offspring of evil.

And no more solid ground beneath her feet. Wasn't sure she had feet in this place.

The time stream.
Nod felt happy to be here.

Of course it is.
Vi knew she sounded wry because she felt wry.

It fought her, like something from a bad
SyFy
flick. Seemed to have thousands of arms, with fingers that clawed and stung and slapped and ripped. She kept her head down, well, it felt like that, though her body didn't feel like her body anymore. She felt a bit like a writhing mass, too, but whatever it was, she hung onto like her life depended on it. Because she was pretty sure it did.

Knew the battle mattered, though couldn't remember why anymore. Only she was losing….

The harder she clung, the more it seemed to slide away…
can't do it….

The thought had barely formed when she felt…something…a surge of strength flowed through—whatever she was right now. The mass got smaller and smaller….

I got this.
That thought surprised her. And then she saw it again.

Stupid
crapeau
hammer. Looked a bit different. But it still came down.

S
oft whispers and the gentle
, healing touch brought her slowly back to consciousness. It smelled lovely, like, she didn't have a word for how great it smelled. Except for this tiny bit of something. If it hadn't been so nice, she'd have said something rude, because waking up lately hadn't been that great for her, particularly when she factored in what happened before the hammers.

There was no gathering together of scattered memories this time. She remembered everything up to the hammer. The boys in drab, the offspring, the squirmy, squicky battle in the…time stream…

How did she know what something was called when she didn't know what it was? Okay, she probably did know why she knew the word.

Everyone okay?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Wait a minute. She sat up with a jerk. It did not change the sense she had three, counting again,
three
nanites swirling around in there. And she identified the something taking the edge off lovely. Her. She sniffed an armpit. Oh yeah, she was the stinky in the nice.

Really need an explanation.

I believed that Nod had erased Blynken because it was gone.

Okay that was Wynken. She'd know its voice anywhere now.

Blynken was wounded, badly wounded. The only way to save it was to hide it in me.

That had to be Nod, because it wasn't Wynken…

But…
That was Vi, she meant that was her. She blinked and gave her head a little shake.

I did not remember what I'd done until the offspring attacked us. Blynken was still somewhat damaged but was able to fight well enough to tip the balance before the offspring could escape into the time stream again.

That was Nod again. Starting to recognize its voice now, too.
So, hail, hail, the gang's all here.
Inside her—
Joe! And Lurch!

They are both well. If you wish to see him, we will show you the way.

That had to be Blynken. She felt like she ought to say howdy, but did one, when one had fought a battle almost to the death with it? Since she wasn't sure, she looked around. She was in a sort of bedroom. It was very sci-fi vid—sleek and new. And pink. Lots of pink that swirled from pale to intense. She blinked, feeling a bit pink-sick.

“Why is it moving?”

We are still in the time stream,
Blynken told her.

They helped settle her stomach, because the view wasn't doing that. Sliding off the bed—comfortable, but also pink—onto a moving floor was almost as unnerving as Afoniki's transparent one. Her legs held and nothing hurt, which was a nice bonus. Her brain, which wanted to ache on account of the shock and awe, couldn't.

She didn't need to ask the way. She knew it, even though that knowledge felt separate. New. She approached a wavy wall and the wave parted for her, allowing her to exit into corridor that wasn't pink, but still moving, or flowing. It was a rainbow ribbon that bent and curved and flowed so that it reminded her of a crazy, old school vid game that her Grand Paw Paw talked her into playing with him every now and again. Mario something or other.

She was kind of embarrassed to be struggling with the weird overload. She was a NON-ian, for Pete's sake. Weird was supposed to be her wheelhouse. She followed the rainbow until another opening appeared. This room was weird on steroids, like mad scientist steroids. Could have been the vid set for
Frankenstein—
she tried to remember how many times it had been remade and couldn't. The Frankenstein vibes were boosted when she spotted Smith and Smith floating in tubes of golden goo. Their eyes were open, but she didn't get the feeling they were conscious. Until their eyes followed her. If the role of Igor wasn't taken, she didn't want it.

They are in a sort of semi-stasis. They will not remember,
Wynken said.

You didn't put me in goo, did you?

You had us,
Nod pointed out

Oh right. So it's…helping them?

Healing and repairing their minds and bodies,
Blynken finished.

She went past the tubes of MITSC boys—no longer in any color but the goo managed to be strategically placed—and rounded a sort of corner that rippled and changed color like her passage disturbed it. There she found Joe. A very shiny Joe.

Vi touched her still gritty cheek.
You didn't tell me there was a shower in mad scientist land.

Sorry,
all three of them said in a sort of echo.

“I forgot to look for the shower.” And the bathroom.

His eyes glowed. “You look…well.”

“I am…well.” Looked like
crapeau
though. And she was freaked to the eyeballs, but sure, let's go with well. “Where am I? And don't say the time stream.”

He closed his mouth, considered for a moment. “You are in my laboratory.”

Vi blinked, not sure how she felt about finding out Joe was the mad scientist, but yet not surprised, now that she considered things. “Oh.”

“Please sit down and I will attempt to explain.”

“Where—” she looked behind and realized that some of the wavy goo extended out from the gooey counter. She tested it, found it held and sank slowly down. It was actually pretty comfortable. For goo.

Joe sat down opposite her and a silence formed that felt a bit wavy like the goo. A wry smile flickered on his mouth, then he sighed.

“I am not sure where to begin.”

“Why didn't you tell me the evil ‘it' could make little its?” Seemed kind of need-to-know. She'd have been less cocky after taking down, um, daddy? Mommy? Itty?

“Lurch was still processing the remnants of ‘it' when we got picked up by the MITSC.” Joe rubbed his face. “I knew nanites reproduced. I did not know it knew that. Or that it could. It is… a process that leaves a nanite…reduced for a while. It was weakened during our encounter with it. Lurch believes that is why it was not able to kill Benson before it was destroyed.” He gave a look that was wry and annoyed. “It was brave—and foolhardy—of you to try to save Nod. It is…most grateful.”

Vi shifted on her goo seat. Decided to change the subject. “The kids were pretty bad-A.”

“We are fortunate they were still…processing. They could have been much worse.”

Vi made a face. “How did they get into the boys in drab?”

Joe frowned. “They were on site at the MEC, if you recall. They must have had contact with Benson there.”

“Jack's lucky it didn't pick him.”

“It will be interesting to study the data. Perhaps there will be clues in there as to how and why it picked its hosts.”

Vi could have told him why it picked Benson, but instead she looked around. “Which brings us back to this place. How did you get from here to NON?”

He looked around, too, then gave her a rueful look, one that asked questions she wasn't sure she understood. Or maybe she wasn't ready to understand.

He leaned back in his goo chair, his gaze considering, or perhaps he consulted with Lurch. “My family has always been able to traverse the time stream. I am not sure how or when this happened. It is, of necessity, a most well-kept secret, even within the family. Not all possess it, but there are signs—and then training occurs to prevent—accidents.”

“Who wants to lose their kid in a time stream.”

Joe didn't smile, just nodded.
Okay….

“And there is always the risk of imperiling one's own timeline.”

Vi kind of knew about the grandfather paradox. Her people had always believed in time travel, even though they kind of didn't. Believed it was possible, just not probable, she amended. And honestly, if Joe were telling her this back on NON…

“With a nanite, the ability is enhanced. I did not have a nanite, until, well, Nod's programming was overridden and it disappeared—”

“In time? It time traveled to—” She didn't want to finish that question. Even though she'd had inklings from what she'd seen during ‘its' attack at City Park. She'd seen…places…the past…and what looked like the future. “So you've been looking for ‘it' longer than six months in the Big Easy. How…long?”

“In your time, I have not yet started looking for it. All of it is—the distant future for you.” He hesitated. “For me, it is the distant past. You are—”

“Long dead. Gone.” Vi tried not to show her shock. So she was like seriously older than Joe?

He flinched. “In here, neither the past nor the future…” he stopped, as if searching for a way to describe it. “We are buffered from time's changes. I created this lab to track disruptions in the timeline and to make tracking of changes and people possible. In the beginning, there were time trackers, but they were…not precise. Because the stream is an imprecise place. There was a battle that almost wiped the trackers out. They went…offline at some point or became less visible. I am not sure which. I knew the technology had existed and I'd heard stories. Some of my family continued to use the stream. Damage was done. But still they used it.”

Vi looked around her. “I would imagine it is somewhat…addictive.”

He nodded. “I never planned to do more than study the time stream—but Lurch came to me. His human host was damaged, dying, from the battle with that evil it. He had saved Wynken, but it was wounded as well. It did not know Nod survived. And Blynken was lost—”

“Actually, Blynken is back. Apparently Nod hid it—and well it can probably tell the story better.” Because they were in her, she knew their story. Had seen it play out from decanting inside someone called Robert, through the trio's breakup to explore, and the first battle with it. There was a lot about their story, their past that would have made her head ache from emphatic scoffing, but she could “see” it inside her head.

Joe's eyes widened, then he smiled with so much delight that Vi's toes curled in her truly nasty shoes, and she almost forgot he was a future mad scientist dude who was both younger and cleaner than she was.

“This is very good news indeed.”

Vi waited a minute before asking, “So how long have you and Lurch been hunting it?”

“It feels long, but there is no way to know. We have been to many planets, in many different times. I am,” he swallowed, “still struggling to process that our hunt is complete. That we have succeeded.”

“A happy ending then.” As long as the happy ending didn't include hugs and kisses and, well, happy endings, then this was one. She'd worried about him going back to his planet, but if he went back to his time…

His troubled gaze met hers. “I have given you much to process. If you would like to return to your sleeping chamber and sanitize…?”

She rubbed a cheek. Had she really thought he'd want to kiss her muddy face? Almost felt like she heard a mighty crack from her heart. But it couldn't be breaking. She hadn't fallen in love with the purple alien. She'd promised herself she wouldn't do that. No way, no how.

“That would be…good.” Was that her voice sounding so husky and near tears? It couldn't be. Bakers didn't cry. It was programmed into their DNA….

H
e didn't want
to lose her, but how did one lose something that one never had? That one did not have the right to have? He was out of his time. He'd taken her out of hers. Put her life at risk.

When he embarked on this hunt with Lurch, he had not expected this…these…feelings. His family, for the most part, did not like feelings. Oh, there'd been stories he'd heard from his grandmother. Stories his father scoffed and derided. Love? Messy and embarrassing. Results in reduction in intelligence. Emotions were to be avoided at all costs. Emotions, love had turned the family purple skinned. Don't give into it. Self control. Discipline. Science. He'd believed he was that person. Had lived as that person. He'd loved his grandmother but thought he didn't believe in love. A scientist with a huge blind spot.

And then came the day he'd looked in the eyes of an Earth woman named Violet. Then he'd understood what his grandmother meant when he'd asked her what love was.

“You'll know it when it happens to you.” She'd smiled, her gaze going to the image of his grandfather as a young man.

“I hope it never happens to me,” he'd said, imitating his father's shudder.

“You'll be a better man if it does, but you must follow your own path. That is love, too.”

“What is?” He'd been puzzled, confused by the contradictory nature of this. He'd always liked things clear. Concise.

“Letting go. Seeking not your own. Caring more about what someone wants, than what you want for them or from them. I love you enough to…let you find your own path.”

He had been satisfied at the time, had felt safe and content with her love. But now, now he knew. He understood. Because he loved…he wanted what was best for Vi, even though the thought of losing her made his heart flinch. Made his insides die a little. He had to let her go.

I am not certain that is what your grandmother meant.

She said love lets go.

But not without giving the object of your affection a choice. You are trying to decide for her. That is arrogance, not love.

Joe considered this, not sure he could believe it, since it gave him hope.

If she did not like you, at least a little, she would have knocked you on your, er, backside.

Joe frowned.
Why would she want to knock me down?

You lied to her about who you are and yanked her through time. And you are younger than she is. Trust me. She likes you or you would be dead.

Oh.
Joe considered this. That was just the tip of ice mass, he realized, she had many reasons to be angry with him.
Perhaps I should apologize to her?

Perhaps you should tell her how you feel. And then apologize. And tell her how you feel again.